London local election results 2022 live: Latest news on who won council elections - Labour wins Westminster

The Conservatives clinched a shock victory in Harrow, offering the party a spark of hope on what was a difficult night in London.

The Tories assumed overall control of the council for the first time since 2006. Voters elected 31 Conservatives, edging out Labour, who took 24 seats.

It means the new Tory administration will have a majority of seven. New ward boundaries meant there were just 55 seats up for grabs, eight fewer than in 2018.

Closely fought wards included North Harrow, where long-standing Tory councillors Chris Baxter and Janet Mote won by just a handful of votes.

The Conservatives began celebrating when they managed to win two seats in the previously Labour held Edgware ward. They then stole a further seat in the Labour stronghold of Rayners Lane to give them real belief.

Cllr Paul Osborn, the new leader of Harrow Council, described the result as a “big day for Harrow” and showed the Conservatives “can win in London”.

One of the major trends that appears to be emerging for the London elections is support for active travel policies, such as low-traffic neighbourhoods.

LTNs, which restrict car access to certain roads, to make them safer for cyclists and pedestrians, have come under vociferous and sometimes menacing criticism from opponents.

Previously LondonWorld has reported that anti-LTN camaigners plotted vigilante style justice against councillors which installed the filters in Hackney.

However, one of the main proponents of LTNs in Hackney Philip Glanville has just been reelected as mayor in the east London borough.

And the second-placed candidate, the Green Party’s Zoe Garbett had also committed to LTNs - meaning candidates supporting the active travel schemes took 76% of the vote.

Southwark was another council which installed controversial low-traffic neighbourhoods, however Labour cemented their position in the borough taking three councillors from the Liberal Democrats - who campaigned against the traffic filters in Dulwich Village.

And the mayor’s walking and cycling commissioner, Will Norman, said the election showed support for such active travel schemes.

He said: “I think the election results show that once again that clean air policies, active travel policies, policies that make the city more liveable, a nicer place to be – designing our streets for people rather than necessarily for cars are a vote winner, we’ve seen this time and time again.

“School streets are a brilliant approach to cleaning up the air around schools making it safe on the road so kids can walk, cycle or scoot rather than take the car.”

Labour mayor Rokhsana Fiaz has been re-elected mayor of Newham in the borough’s local elections on May 5, the borough’s BBC local democracy reporter Alaistair Lockhart reports.

The mayor won a second consecutive term in the East London borough with 35,696 votes.

Fiaz eclisped her rivals – gaining more votes than the other six candidates combined with 56.23% of the vote. The results for Newham Council are yet to be announced, but are expected to see a landslide win for Labour.

Turnout in the ballot was unusually low, with just 28.8% of the electorate voting – 10% less than in the last election in 2018.

Fiaz was first elected Newham mayor in 2018, becoming the first directly-elected female mayor in London. Newham is one of the five London boroughs to have a directly-elected mayor, with the first Newham mayor elected in 2002.

Labour’s Robin Wales was the first mayor of the East London borough and won five consecutive terms, serving from 2002 to 2018.

Fiaz successfully challenged Wales for the Labour candidacy in 2018 – after first being elected a councillor in 2014 – and was elected later that year.

As well as our electoral map, which will be updated as the results come in, you can find out the results in your ward with my colleague Daniel McNeil’s comprehensive guide.

In a result which would go against the grain, the Conservatives are starting to believe they could flip Harrow.

Labour have had control of the north-west London council for 11 out of the last 12 years, however the party has only had a small majority.

My colleague Adam Shaw reports: “Could there be an upset on the cards in Harrow in north-west London?

“The Tories have taken two out of three seats in Edgware and have just stolen another in Rayners Lane ‘against all the odds’.

“Labour camp says it’s ‘not going to plan’ at the moment.

“The Conservatives win in North Harrow - by just a handful of votes - to add further intrigue to this election.

“Real belief now that the council could turn blue for the first time since 2006.”

As more results come in, London is looking worse and worse for the Conservatives.

And the map doesn’t tell the whole story, the Tories have now lost their only councillors in Lambeth and have gone from 11 seats to one seat in Richmond.

Sutton was a council they had been targeting, however the Liberal Democrats held strong there.

And Labour has taken three of the Tories biggest London beasts - Westminster, Wandsworth and Barnet.

The Conservatives have made some gains in Enfield, which appears to be one of the only areas where the anti-LTN vote has come out.

Counting is underway for the much anticipated Tower Hamlets mayoral election, where Labour’s John Biggs and disgraced former mayor Lutfur Rahman are going head to head.

What looked to be a fairly straightforward mayoral election for Labour became a far more interesting prospect following the announcement that Rahman was standing.

Rahman was found guilty of corrupt electoral practices in a civil finding in 2015, and was banned from standing in elections until 2022, although he never faced criminal prosecution.

The former mayor is hopeful of a political resurgence and, backed by former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, has been tipped to potentially cause an upset at the polls.

But Mr Rahman’s return to Tower Hamlets politics has led to a warning over voter fraud by communities minister Kemi Badenoch, City Hall LDR Joe Talora reports.

The minister wrote to the Met Police and Electoral Commission last month over her concerns.

She said: “We are concerned that fraud could be repeated on May 5 in areas where it has occurred before, places such as Tower Hamlets where there is a particular history.”

The presence of Rabina Khan in the mayoral race – once of Mr Rahman’s Tower Hamlets First party before defecting to the Lib Dems – may however cause issues for the former mayor’s Aspire party. Ms Khan has finished second in the previous two mayoral elections in Tower Hamlets.

Labour has held Islington, with all votes now having been counted.

The party returned 48 councillors, with the Greens continuing their good England-wide record with three councillors.

The east London borough of Havering - which was due to call today - looks like it will be the last London borough to officially declare.

With 52 of the 55 seats declared, there will be no overall control once against with two different residents’ associations currently on 23 seats and the Conservatives on 20.

On a good night, the Tories would have hoped to take back Havering, however they have lost six seats - with Labour gaining four new councillors.

The count has been suspended as the Rainham and Wennington votes are due to be recounted, the Romford Recorder reports.

The Recorder says: “Cllr Jeffrey Tucker asked for a recount and Cllr Damian White said he feels it’s only ‘right, proper and fair’ to offer one ‘in the circumstances’.”

Cllr White said: “We need to make sure that democratic wishes of people are listened to, exercised and delivered.

“That means a subsequent recount and I think it’s the right thing to do, particularly when we all need to have a period of rest.

“I mean we’re all exhausted. I myself have been awake for 40 hours, so I think a couple of days of rest and recovery to have fresh eyes on Monday to make sure that the result is going to be declared is the right decision.”

In won’t come as a surprise to many people to learn that Labour is looking very dominant in Lambeth.

In 2018, the party won 57 seats with the Tories winning only one, Cllr Tim Briggs in Clapham Common.

The borough’s local democracy reporter Robert Firth is reporting that Mr Briggs left the count hours ago realising he had been defeated.

It is looking like the Conservatives will have no councillors in Lambeth.

Robert says “the local Tory party chair is said to be furious”.